


you always know who your friends are

by Anonymous



Category: Silmaril (Glowfic), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angband, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-01
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2019-02-09 02:05:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12877866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/





	you always know who your friends are

The general mood in the camp turns slowly from fear to relief and it becomes clear that he’s said the right things to the right people and the Noldor won’t destroy themselves in civil war after all. Maitimo can’t quite bring himself to be glad yet, but nothing’s pressingly wrong and he’s safe now and he’s _going_ to be okay.

Findekano comes to him in the tent, where Maitimo is sitting up restuffing and sewing up rips in a bloodstained gambeson. Maitimo doesn’t rise—can’t rise—but he sets his work aside and smiles up at Findekano in the candlelight. Enough of him is still caught up in remembering and reliving and trying to somehow understand what happened that he can’t quite reach Findekano, can’t quite be there when they talk, but he does the best he can. He pats the makeshift pile of leaves and cloth that serves as his bed and waits for Findekano to take his cue to sit beside him.

Findekano does it and the motion near him in the dim light reminds him for a moment of an orc coming to hurt him. He controls his heartbeat and only flinches a little and reminds himself that this is Findekano, that he’s safe, that he’s out, that it’s over.

Findekano looks like he could use a hug, and like he’s not sure whether to offer Maitimo one but leaning toward yes, and like he could use for the choice to be taken out of his hands. Maitimo hugs him, reminding himself again that he’s safe, that Findekano isn’t an orc holding him still. Sometimes it feels like he’s just going through the motions now but even if he can’t bring himself to feel affection or feel happy to see him he still cares, he still loves him. Whatever he needs to do to make things as close to right as possible between them is worth it, is important no matter how broken he is or how broken their relationship.

Findekano laughs in an uncharacteristic way that reminds him of Thauron. But he’s not Thauron, he’s Findekano, there’s no reason why his arms should feel like Thauron’s arms, no reason why the way he holds himself should feel so much like Thauron, no reason save that he’s only seen both by candlelight that the tent should look so much like Angband.

“Maitimo!” Thauron says delightedly, tightening his grip as Maitimo tries to pull away. “Welcome back.”

-

It’s not Findekano. Individual postures are right but he shifts between them at the wrong times and in the wrong ways.

Maitimo carefully avoids giving any sign that he’s noticed anything wrong.

(Something about that thought feels familiar, like maybe he once noticed something off about Findekano before, but he can’t remember that happening. Maybe it’s just that this is the second time Thauron’s impersonated him.)

He knows where he is. He doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t like it at all, but at least he knows. He can tell the difference between Findekano and Thauron.

-

He can tell the difference. He carefully avoids letting on that he can tell. Thauron never notices when Maitimo sees through his act.

(He has no memory of Thauron ever noticing.)

-

He’s wary, when they free him. Early on, there were a few rescues that turned out to be tricks, hallucinations. But now there are none of the little tells that gave away the game. He’s out this time. There’s less of him left than there was the first time he _thought_ he was free but he’s out and he can help them win the war now and then maybe he’ll heal, if he’s lucky.

Findekano hasn’t forgiven him as he had in Thauron’s games. They work together anyway to get everyone to cooperate against their shared enemy.

What Findekano asks of him in private, as recompense for the ships and the Ice and everything he let come between them, is crueler than he knows. Maitimo makes his heart beat slowly and makes himself breathe and refuses to let himself freeze in terror as every passing moment brings up more painful memories. He doesn’t explain, in case it would make Findekano stop asking, in case instead of someone who can be blamed and who can be asked for things and who can maybe try to make up for his actions he seems (maybe correctly, by now) too broken for any of that, too fragile, too much a victim to still be a person, let alone a person who can be relied on.

(He doesn’t explain, in case it _wouldn’t_. He doesn’t want to learn that Findekano wouldn’t care, would still ask the same price even knowing.)

And then one day it’s Thauron’s dick in his mouth and Angband around them and Maitimo can’t think at all, can only panic and scramble blindly backward, so lost in unreasoning terror that it’s days (or hours or weeks or maybe not, maybe it all happens in the blink of an eye) before he can even think clearly enough to realize he was never out.

-

He wakes. The person watching him worriedly might actually be Findekano. Maitimo can’t tell, will never know for sure except in retrospect. He’ll only ever know for sure it’s _not_ Findekano.

They talk. Maitimo chooses his words carefully, to meet two different standards: anything he says he needs to be able to live with having said to Findekano, and anything he says he needs to live with having said to Thauron.

-

It’s supposedly his own family who rescue him this time. He confers with Macalaure-or-Thauron about the supposed strategic situation.

Relations with the Nolofinweans are strained and seem like they might deteriorate badly.

He meets with Findekano-or-Thauron. Findekano-or-Thauron asks the same thing he asked last time, as a gesture of apology. Maitimo makes himself not care anymore that the face is maybe-a-disguise, that there’s a possibility Thauron is laughing at him.

(At least, he tries.)

-

There is Thauron, in Angband. There is Findekano, in his memories. There’s the person he carries on a relationship with every time he gets out, who turns into Thauron, who will maybe someday not turn into Thauron but that won’t prove he couldn’t. Maybe someday there’ll be a scenario where the war ends and he goes on not waking up in Angband and he still won’t know for sure. Maybe someday Findekano-or-Thauron will keep that face for enough thousands of years for Maitimo to put himself back together enough to love him.

He has memories of Findekano untainted, but that’s all he’ll ever have.

-

There are so many memories missing, especially of Findekano. He has some left, though.

He remembers their first time, as Telperion waned, laughing, half-thrilled and half-afraid hiding in a garden, quiet so as not to draw the attention of anyone in the city around them.

He remembers their first time, down south, out in the wilderness, with no one for miles around.

He remembers their first time, in his room with the door shut, laughing freely and trusting the thick stone.

He has some memories left, and some that were created by Thauron. And he doesn’t know which are which.

-

Sometimes Maitimo gets a reprieve and gets to wander Beleriand. He fights in battles that have a small chance of actually harming the Enemy. He gets to see Findekano, who has a small chance of not being Thauron, and tries to believe in a Findekano who has no chance of being Thauron, who he’ll probably never see again and who he wouldn’t be able to tell apart from Thauron if he did.

-

The Findekano who cuts off his hand makes him miss the real Findekano even more than usual.


End file.
